Three quarters of the people of Syria are Sunni Arab Moslems. The other quarter are Alawaites (a Shiite sect), Druse, Christians, Kurds and others. Despite the overwhelming majority of the Sunnis, for the last 45 years, the Syrian government has been under the control of the Alawaites. The first leader was Haffez al Assad and fifteen years ago, Haffez's son Bashir al Assad took control. Their rule of Syria has been bloody, ruthless and brutal. Both father and son used chemical weapons on civilians thereby killing literally tens of thousands. Both father and son ran police states in which any opposition to the government was met with imprisonment, torture and death. Even the slightest hint of any opposition to the government was met with and iron fist that beat all opposition to death.
About three years ago, all this changed. There were Sunnis who marched in the streets to protest conditions in the country. Assad sent snipers to shoot random protesters dead in the streets. In an amazing development, the shootings did not destroy the protests; instead, they increased. Assad turned up the attacks on the protesters in response. After a short time, the country descended into civil war. On one side were the butchers of Assad, people who killed their opponents haphazardly with no consideration for civilian casualties. On the other side were Syrians (mostly Sunni) who were poorly armed, poorly trained, and generally not ready for a military battle. The rebels, however, had numbers on their side. The Assad forces adopted extremely brutal and deadly measures to fight the rebellion. They used starvation, mass civilian killing and even chemical weapons in an attempt to break the rebels.
As the civil war developed, America stayed completely out of the conflict. Indeed, it took nearly a year of murders by Assad and the death of more than 100,000 Syrians before president Obama took the step of saying that American policy was that Assad should go. Obama did not actually do anything, but he put the USA firmly on the side of those who wanted the murderous thug Assad to be gone.
Assad, however, hung on. He got assistance from Iran as well as from Iran's servants at Hezbollah. Shiite Iran and Shiite Hezbollah were not prepared to watch the Sunni majority in Syria take that country out of the Shiite alliance that Iran had forged. More and more Sunnis were killed with weapons and fighters that came from Iran and Hezbollah. America, however, did nothing.
As the battle between Sunnis and Shiites in Syria grew ever more fierce, some of the crazies on the Sunni side came to fight. Al Qaeda made its appearance on the rebel side in Syria. Then ISIS made a major splash on the rebel side. The actual Syrian Sunnis who were fighting got smashed on all sides. They slowly lost control of the rebels to ISIS and al Qaeda.
Now, president Obama says that he wants to destroy ISIS. As a result, Obama has repositioned the USA so that our government is now willing to accept Assad's staying in power. This new position seems to be part of Obama's grand design to make peace with Iran. It is just the old give and take; the USA gives and Iran takes.
There is no question that America should be against ISIS on all fronts. There is also no question that America should be positioned against Iran and the murderer and war criminal Assad. Obama should not be cozying up to Iran now. We ought to be getting Assad out of office and pushing the Iranians back to their own country.
Sadly, we are all captive to the delusions that govern Obama's actions.
About three years ago, all this changed. There were Sunnis who marched in the streets to protest conditions in the country. Assad sent snipers to shoot random protesters dead in the streets. In an amazing development, the shootings did not destroy the protests; instead, they increased. Assad turned up the attacks on the protesters in response. After a short time, the country descended into civil war. On one side were the butchers of Assad, people who killed their opponents haphazardly with no consideration for civilian casualties. On the other side were Syrians (mostly Sunni) who were poorly armed, poorly trained, and generally not ready for a military battle. The rebels, however, had numbers on their side. The Assad forces adopted extremely brutal and deadly measures to fight the rebellion. They used starvation, mass civilian killing and even chemical weapons in an attempt to break the rebels.
As the civil war developed, America stayed completely out of the conflict. Indeed, it took nearly a year of murders by Assad and the death of more than 100,000 Syrians before president Obama took the step of saying that American policy was that Assad should go. Obama did not actually do anything, but he put the USA firmly on the side of those who wanted the murderous thug Assad to be gone.
Assad, however, hung on. He got assistance from Iran as well as from Iran's servants at Hezbollah. Shiite Iran and Shiite Hezbollah were not prepared to watch the Sunni majority in Syria take that country out of the Shiite alliance that Iran had forged. More and more Sunnis were killed with weapons and fighters that came from Iran and Hezbollah. America, however, did nothing.
As the battle between Sunnis and Shiites in Syria grew ever more fierce, some of the crazies on the Sunni side came to fight. Al Qaeda made its appearance on the rebel side in Syria. Then ISIS made a major splash on the rebel side. The actual Syrian Sunnis who were fighting got smashed on all sides. They slowly lost control of the rebels to ISIS and al Qaeda.
Now, president Obama says that he wants to destroy ISIS. As a result, Obama has repositioned the USA so that our government is now willing to accept Assad's staying in power. This new position seems to be part of Obama's grand design to make peace with Iran. It is just the old give and take; the USA gives and Iran takes.
There is no question that America should be against ISIS on all fronts. There is also no question that America should be positioned against Iran and the murderer and war criminal Assad. Obama should not be cozying up to Iran now. We ought to be getting Assad out of office and pushing the Iranians back to their own country.
Sadly, we are all captive to the delusions that govern Obama's actions.
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